Who should head the diplomatic service?

The European Union’s national leaders are expected to choose the next head of EU foreign policy on 16 July. He – or very possibly she – is likely to be selected based on gender, party and passport. But what if the next ‘high representative of the Union for foreign affairs and security policy/vice-president of the European Commission’ – to use the full title – were to be chosen based on the objectives of EU foreign-policy strategy, or the needs of the European External Action Service (EEAS), which has been operational for just three and a half years?

National governments have plenty of material to consider. The current high representative, Catherine Ashton, wrote a lengthy and sometimes strikingly personal review of the EEAS last July. In December, the member states compressed their often trenchant views into 11 points. And on Monday (30 June), the European Court of Auditors (ECA), at the European Parliament’s request, reviewed how the EEAS was set up and how effectively it has operated.

But the prime ministers and presidents who will attend the European Council in mid-July could easily save themselves the work of reading the texts, because one point emerges clearly from all three reviews: the EEAS is still very much a work in progress. Or, to borrow the words of the ECA, “the establishment of the EEAS was rushed and inadequately prepared, beset by too many constraints and vaguely defined tasks”. A good number of those problems persist.

The next high representative will somehow need to resolve the desires of those member states that might like the EEAS to work better with the Commission, to look more like a classic foreign service, and also perform better some of the functions typically executed by defence ministries.

The EEAS is a peculiar, hybrid institution; its chief has the challenge of binding it together, as well as steering it.

The challenge of binding the EEAS together might be easier if it were given greater political direction. The ECA says an “important factor” in the EEAS’s difficulties was that “the EU’s objectives were not set out in an overarching foreign-policy strategy”. But, whatever the ECA’s lament, the EU’s next foreign-policy chief will be chosen in the same context as Ashton was, with the European security strategy of 2003 being the closest the EU has to an “overarching foreign-policy strategy”. In addition to the right demographic profile and strong institution-building qualities, it would therefore be helpful for the next foreign-policy chief to be blessed with finely attuned geopolitical intuition.

What is needed from the next foreign-policy chief

Before Catherine Ashton was named as the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, a strong background in international affairs looked like a criterion for the post. Her predecessor, Javier Solana, had been NATO’s secretary-general; before putting Ashton forward, the British had been considering nominating their foreign minister, David Miliband.

The selection of Ashton, whose major international exposure was as European trade commissioner for 13 months, makes it harder to guess how member
states will decide this time round.

The day-to-day necessities of the job suggest a foreign-policy chief who is happy to travel, to delegate, or to talk to the media – preferably, all of those.

In their comments on Ashton’s review of the EEAS, member states emphasised the “importance of timely, effective and efficient preparation of Council meetings”. The stress they placed on the value of an early form of EU diplomacy – special representatives – also indicates a wish for a high representative who appreciates
the virtues of traditional, intense personal diplomacy in crisis areas.

For the EEAS itself, the selection of a woman from a newer member state would help its statistics (both categories are under-represented at managerial level).

The ECA’s audit suggests that one of the foreign-policy chief’s roles – as vice-president of the European Commission – has been neglected. The ECA found that just five formal meetings of commissioners whose portfolios had a large international dimension had been held in 29 months – and those meetings were all chaired by the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, and not by Ashton.

In their comments on Ashton’s review of the EEAS, member states also made clear that they wanted the EEAS to pay substantial attention to crisis management. They might, therefore, be interested in a candidate with experience of defence matters (or civilian crisis management). On top of that, the next foreign-policy chief will face a set of problems unresolved since the EEAS’s birth.

An aptitude for institutional affairs would undoubtedly be very handy.

The needs at headquarters

The ECA argues that the current foreign-policy chief has spent inordinate time on personnel issues. But despite Catherine Ashton’s micro-management, the EEAS has still not achieved its staffing targets. Just 25% of managers are women; just 29% come from the 13 states that have joined the EU since 2004.

The member states are also unhappy about the number of national diplomats in the service. Such emphasis might seem petty turf warfare, but the importance that member states attach to these figures is more significant: the composition of the EEAS, a unique amalgam of EU officials and national diplomats, has yet to settle; member states fear it may still become little more than a Commission department. The reports by the ECA, the EEAS and the member states show how institutions’ desires and fears translate into a lack of confidence in their partner organisations, turf battles and some very substantive disputes. Calls for ‘enhanced’ ‘co-ordination’, ‘co-operation’, ‘information-sharing’ and simplified financial procedures are leitmotifs in each of the reviews.

One result of such clashes ahead of the EEAS’s birth in 2011 was the importing of problems: the ECA attributes the EEAS’s top-heavy management structure to the desire to give each member state a position near the top.

There is, in addition, a distinct challenge relating to the most sensitive area of the EEAS’s activities – how better to integrate military and civilian crisis-management systems into the whole EEAS structure.

A job description based on the needs of headquarters would suggest the next foreign-policy chief should be highly knowledgeable about the machinery of the EU and its member states – and preferably possess an aptitude for conflict resolution.

The needs of delegations

The contribution of the EU’s 140 delegations around the world emerges garlanded with praise from all three documents. They are appreciated for their political reporting and are a major reason why the ECA suggests that “the EEAS is likely to have brought member states considerable savings”. All three reviews – by the ECA, the EEAS and member states – try to set a bandwagon rolling, by arguing that delegations’ role should be expanded to include consular services for EU citizens (thereby reducing the need for member states to have embassies). The EEAS would also like the delegations beefed up, to include more “military and civilian security experts”.

Such appreciation can seem rather removed from life in a delegation. By and large, the delegations are at the sharp and remote end of many of the problems at headquarters, but there are difficulties specific to delegations. The ECA found that “the staffing of the delegations’ political sections is still not completed”. Delegations are cut off from much of the most valuable information: the EEAS says that just 23 delegations have systems suitable for sending secret information; just 70 heads of delegation have ‘security authorisation’.

This lack of security clearance is hardly likely to encourage member states’ embassies to work more closely with EU delegations, as these reports advise. Delegations’ contact with headquarters is additionally strained by very tight travel budgets that mean that HQ officials will often be billeted in the homes of delegation staff (this passes unmentioned). The EU’s appetite for expanding delegations’ roles appears to be running ahead of the delegations’ operational integration. The next foreign-policy chief should perhaps be less sanguine about delegations than these reports suggest.